I know it's where the heart is, but there is something permanent and unmovable about it, too.

There is something about having familiar walls to your bedroom, in a familiar town, with your parents down the hallway so you can run in there if something bad were to happen.

There is something beautiful about that, home being a physical place.

I am a twenty-one-year-old girl and I still sometimes sit in bed at night, here in Charlottesville, and feel that deep pang I remember from summer camps, of just wanting my own bed, of wanting to wake up to the coffee-pot half drained by my dad and good morning hugs from my mom. I still feel the deepness of that - the homesickness.

Tonight, my mother and I both had a hard time sleeping, and we found each other on g-chat after midnight. We talked like we were both up in the kitchen in our pajamas, in the deepness of a quiet house, chatting about life. But we were in separate houses, separate towns. And that hurt in my gut came to me, the one of just wishing I wasn't so grown-up, or wishing I was snuggled in my room where I could hear the wind-chimes on the patio and the courthouse bells every hour. And I felt like mourning for something, without really knowing what. Maybe mourning my own maturity, how it crept up on me without asking me if it was alright.

I'm excited for this summer. I'm excited to dig into Charlottesville, to root all around the hidden gems of this city, to create it into something I can call my own. And I'm excited to see the world one day, too. I'm excited to travel and understand the places and people who span distances I have only dreamed about. I'm excited to fall in love with the corners of this planet.

but I promise you, there isn't an inch of land that will ever be more precious to me than home.

and while I'll keep it in my heart, tonight I'm allowing myself the sadness of wanting to be there, in that physical house, with the walls that are familiar, and the people I love.

The most hysterical thing to me right now is my Hebrew Bible study guide, which, as I am creating it, is becoming sloppier and sloppier. I am abbreviating words, and have started saying "Baby" to refer to the Babylonians. So, my notes currently say things like "After the Baby invasion, the Jewish people were exiled" or "Psalm 137 expresses the deep distress of the people because of baby's".

also, I ate bread this morning that I realized afterwards has been expired for at least 9 days. Hope I don't die.

also, I'm translating Ke$ha's "Tik Tok" for my ASL final this afternoon. So my study schedule right now means that my thoughts alternate between Royal Theology and what's the best way to sign "boys blowin' up my phone phone".

"I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

-Martin Luther King Jr

----- an addendum:

two articles I found to be interesting reads in light of current events:

the best way to get a college kid to do pretty much anything is to promise that there will be pizza there, and that they won't have to pay for it.

this past weekend was basically a college-kid-food-wonderland. From the Apple Blossom festival I attended in Winchester, to a study review sesh for sign language to a picnic this evening, I'm pretty sure all I've done for the past two days is eat food other people provided for me.

and it.

was.

totally.

AWESOME.

honestly, I don't think I ever want to experience the real world. because there are so many wonderful things to love about college - such as, but not limited to: